Is Jose Quintaña trade the next Jon Garland deal? Or next Sammy Sosa?

The only surprising part about the Chicago White Sox trading away their top pitcher on Thursday is where he wound up – many baseball fans were convinced Jose Quintaña would wind up wearing the pinstripes and interlocking “NY” logo of the New York Yankees.
 

Changing uniforms, but not his home city

Instead, Quintaña is going to the Chicago Cubs; who gave up four ballplayers in their minor league system. Including the two who supposedly were the top prospects they had for their future.

IT’S ONE OF those deals that could come back to bite the Cubbies on their behind if any of those young ballplayers develops into a key to the White Sox’ next championship ballclub – whenever in the future that may occur.

It would be the Cubs’ luck that the “Cuban revolution” taking place on the Sout’ Side will win a pennant, and one of these no-longer-a-Cub players will get the key hit to win the Sox their second world series of this century.

Of course, baseball fans know there always is uncertainty.

For it also could turn out that Quintaña could be the key to gives the Cubs a jolt this season and helps them return to the form that enabled them to win their first World Series of this century just last year.

IN WHICH CASE, it would be just like the White Sox to provide the key piece to enable the Cubs to be able to claim to have more World Series titles in recent years (’05 for the White Sox and ’16 for those baby blue bears) than they do.

Cubs fans' fantasy all-Chicago trade?

So this trade is a gamble, as much of baseball always is. No one knows for sure how things will turn out, and we’ll probably need to wait a couple of decades before we can definitively say if somebody seriously screwed up with Thursday’s deal.

Could this wind up like the 1998 trade where long-forgotten pitcher Matt Karchner went to the Cubs for a minor league ballplayer who turned out to be Jon Garland – one of the starting pitchers who led the White Sox to that ’05 World Series championship.

The White Sox fans' retort

I’m sure that’s the dream from the perspective of 35^th Street.

ALTHOUGH UP AT Clark and Addison streets, they’re probably thinking more along the lines of that 1992 trade where the Cubs gave up an aging (but still capable) George Bell in exchange for a young outfielder whom the White Sox had written off as too stubborn to learn new ways of improving himself as a ballplayer.

Both of these Steves pitched better ...

Some six years later, Sammy Sosa hit those 66 home runs in a season and began that six-season streak in which he began bashing home runs at a pace only matched by Babe Ruth at his 1920s peak.

Which for a while made Cubs fans want to think of this trade as some sort of ultimate steal. Except that with all the steroid speculation that the rumor mill insists on tagging to Sosa, there are many White Sox fans who feel nothing but relief that their favorite ballclub doesn’t have to live with that albatross around its neck.

... for the other Chicago ball club

According to the Chicago Tribune, this is the 15^th time the two Chicago ballclubs have made trades with each other. We’ll have to see how things pan out.

THERE WILL BE some White Sox fans who will give extra scrutiny to outfielder Eloy Jimenez and pitcher Dylan Cease – who are now part of the Sox’ future rather than the Cubs. Although considering that the Cubs had these ballplayers this season at teams in South Bend, Ind., and Myrtle Beach, S.C., it would seem that maybe 2019 is the soonest we’ll see them in Chicago.

Still a freakish image to contemplateS

Although it wouldn’t be unheard of for one team’s player to have better luck on the other side of Chicago. I still remember former Cub Steve Stone (yes, the broadcast guy) being a key pitcher for that 1977 White Sox team that seriously contended for a championship, while Steve Trout (a local boy from suburban South Holland) missed being a part of the ’83 White Sox team that went to the playoffs but made up for it the following year by being a part of that ’84 division-winning Cubs ballclub.

So what’s it going to be for Quintaña?

Will Thursday go down in baseball history “infamy” for this trade? And on which side of Chicago will it wind up being detested, while beloved by the other part of the local baseball fandom?

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Quinn campaign struggles, but Blagojevich takes the title for head goof

I believe that Gov. Pat Quinn should be thankful for the behavior in recent days of Rod Blagojevich. Because it is about the only thing that prevents us from labelling the incumbent governor as being the most delusional person our our political scene.

Quinn is the guy whose executive Inspector General got dumped and had his chief of staff quit on him, just a few days after the political consultants he hired to help him get re-elected quit on him – and took a few pot-shots at him in the process. Can't Quinn keep anybody?

ONE COULD SAY that Quinn is the guy who is losing to a guy who, on ideological grounds, he should be wiping the floor with. Instead, it seems William Brady may have a chance at a Nov. 2 success – although with just over two months remaining in the campaign season, I can’t help but think that anything could happen.

But before we write off The Mighty Quinn as the man without a political clue, I think we all have to agree that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich gets that title – regardless of anything that the current governor does.

At least that is how I respond to Blagojevich on Sunday for his comments that he has it in the back of his head that he will run for political office someday – after he is acquitted of all charges in whatever second trial he is forced to endure.

The pomposity contained in the thoughts of that last sentence are so intense that it almost makes me want to wretch just by writing it. Blech!

WHAT I CAN’T figure is if this is just Blagojevich-style posturing, or if he really is this delusional?

Because back when the Illinois General Assembly went through the process last year of impeaching Blagojevich and removing him from office, they also took the time to pass an order that specifically bans Blagojevich from ever running for an Illinois political post again.

I’m sure some people thought that ban was wide-ranging and covered everything. But I’m pretty sure it would be restricted solely to positions within Illinois state government. Of course, Blagojevich rose to the top of the pile in Illinois state government, so I can’t envision why he’d want to go back there.

Does Milorod really believe he could go back to Washington and serve in Congress? Perhaps he thinks he can move to a neigborhood where the locals will be sympathetic enough to want him as their representative?

THE ABSURDITY OF that statement makes me want to laugh at this payaso (with apologies to Bozo, Clarabelle and Krusty). Ha Ha!

Or maybe Blagojevich, the man who while he was governor never seemed to like to leave the city limits, has it in his head that he can run for a city government office. Maybe he thinks he is Mayor Richard M. Daley’s future replacement?

That thought creates a reaction within my body that is both noisy and smelly, along with being rather rude in public.

So the idea of Blagojevich with a political future, to me, creates a reaction of wretching, laughter and a fart. In short, I don’t exactly take the idea all that seriously. Which is why I wonder why anyone these days is taking it seriously.

IT CERTAINLY SEEMS that way, since newspapers and their websites across the country are playing up Blagojevich’s talk, which came on one of those weekend talk shows of political analysis. I realize it was a Sunday broadcast being written up in the Monday newspapers, which means it got covered for the same reason that news organizations pay attention to anything Pat Quinn does on Sunday.

There’s nothing else to cover.

They may like to think they are more sophisticated than the attempts at political and social analysis that we get from Oprah or those women at The View. But Fox News Sunday showed it could be just as vaccuous for allowing Blagojevich to go on their air and say such stuff without challenging him much.

In fact, I’d like to think that Whoopi Goldberg would have smacked Blagojevich upside the head and told him to quit being a fool, if he had tried to say these same things on her daytime talk show.

ABOUT THE CLOSEST anyone came to challenging him was when he was asked why he would refuse to travel to their studios in Washington for that interview, instead attending the Comix Con convention held in Rosemont this weekend.

At least to that question, Blagojevich gave a blunt answer that was probably the only honest comment he has made in a long time. He needs the money.

All of those people who were willing to pay Blagojevich $50 for his autograph (or $80 for a photograph with him) are helping him to come up with money to live off of for the next few months. Of course, just to put things into perspective, pro football Hall of Fame member Jerry Rice commanded $150 for an autograph at a recent sports collector’s convention held in Baltimore (and $170 for a photo op). Although former pitcher/current broadcaster Steve Stone can be had "cheap" for $30.

So being a goofy guv with delusions of a political comeback (perhaps he thinks he’s his one-time idol, Richard Nixon, circa 1962, instead of 1974) has its limits.

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